Consider Frankel, which today made the rest of the field in England's Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot look like they didn't belong to be on the same track with him. An astounding 1-10 favorite before the race (you'd win 1 pound if you bet 10 on him to win), the 4-year-old lived up to that billing. He beat his nearest rival, Excelebration, by 11 lengths. Bullet Train, a brother of Frankel's who helped set the pace in the early going, looked more like a steam engine by the end.

"The facts are that Frankel's performance is likely to surpass anything witnessed in Timeform's 64-year history," Timeform "flat editor" David Johnson says in a statement the racing site posted online.

"Once Tom Queally, Frankel's jockey, opened the tap there was no way any other horse was going to get close to Frankel, the giant bay increasing his lead with every one of his all-devouring strides. Still in full flow as he passed the winning post, it is hard to recall a performance like his by any horse in recent memory.

" 'Breathtaking,' 'astonishing,' 'brilliant' were just some of the milder adjectives murmured by appreciative fans, even the unexperienced racegoers among them sensing they were witnessing something extraordinary."